


Colored Creation

by DuPhilycheesesteak



Series: Cliche Cafe [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Hope this was an adequte companion piece, Lovely boys almost in love, M/M, Midday drabble, Must learn brevity with these tags, Narry is still my ship, Nialls accent doesnt appear in his own head, Nill is dirtier and more sarcastic than Harry was, Not Beta'd, Open but happy and hopeful ending again, Sorry Not Sorry, fluffy again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:37:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7285663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuPhilycheesesteak/pseuds/DuPhilycheesesteak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall is a busy bee trying to focus on his paperwork (though he doesn't actually get anything done) in some dingy café when he spots Harry, the boy with chocolate curls and emerald eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colored Creation

It was amazing, the way it was so simple.

There was no awkward rom-com run in, no flirty conversation awkwardly exchanged in public, no blinding light sent from above illuminating his person, instead, there was my more than persistent flat mate, too many cups of subpar coffee, and a pen at the end of its life. 

I was sitting in a less than comfortable wooden chair, rough and unstained, it matched the table I was aggressively hunched over. The space the table provided was the biggest in the café, all the booths had smaller, more cramped tabletops, so my work had plenty of room to breathe, but I quickly realized that the wooden contraption was made more for aesthetic than actual usage, my ass was going numb. 

I had been at my flat earlier, with much the same layout, but my raucous, capricious, child-like flat mate had made any real work impossible, and so I relocated to some coffee hole-in-the-wall nearby, unpacking my business letters and other official nonsense onto the table in near the same position as I had at my desk in my room. I had downed near on three cups of watered down coffee by this point, and was getting more and more frustrated that my attention span seemed to seeping from my grasp more and more easily as the time ticked on. Not to mention the grungy cup they had given me, I assumed it had once been an alright mug, but, now, it was ugly, dated, and chipped on one side, a slight danger that had resulted in a tiny cut on the inside of my lower lip. I didn't have much left in me until I called the whole thing a total shit show and packed it all in for the night, maybe have a pint or four before crashing in bed for some leisurely wanking. 

I was minutes from calling it quits and leaving when I saw him. 

The other café loner.

He was sat in a booth about five up from where my disastrous paperwork and I were, hunkered down into the horrendous orange polyester seat like it was a security blanket. His nose was practically buried within the pages of the book he was practically glaring at, and I had the fleetingly silly notion to offer him the glasses I currently had pressed against my own nose. With a scarf wrapped around his neck, multiple rings glinting from his long fingered hands, and his hair tied up in an obscene bun, he looked more than at home in the café, but, his unusual, impossible face spoke more than his clothes or rings ever could. 

I quickly realized that he was beautiful, but, with time, came to appreciate the contradicting mystery that he was.

Not one to break my mothers teachings, I made myself stop staring, lest he caught me. Avoiding awkward situations was a full time occupation for me, as I always made a fool of myself if/when the universe provided a opportunity to, which it did nearly nonstop. Its not that I was scared of making eye contact with him, though the thought did admittedly send a slight shock of anxiety through me, I was more concerned in what those eyes would show me, what tales they would tell when seen with total allowance. I was sure it would be life changing. I nearly jumped out of my seat when my phone rang, blaring out the annoying tone I had never deigned to change after buying the damned thing. Even without looking I knew it was my flat mate, whose needy constitution knew no appropriate bounds. I declined the call, letting silence fall again. Of course, child that he is, my roomie couldn't let a declined call get in his way, most likely took it as a personal offence, and decided to mass call me, the little shit, forcing my hand, as was common with us really. I declined and ignored as many of his attempts as possible, until even I was getting annoyed with my own presence in the otherwise quiet place, and answered my phone, giving a short glare to the bright name emblazoned on my cracked screen, 'Peter Pan', a childhood moniker that never quite lost its aptness over the years. I endeavored to make the conversation as short as physically possible, grunting an affirmative when he demanded that I pick tea and biscuits up on the way home, seeing as he had finished off what was left of the Jaffa Cakes earlier, and our dog, Fido, having peed on the box of what was left of our Earl Grey since my departure. I terminated the call, letting his still ringing voice continue a conversation I had no more patience for, not entirely convinced it hadn't been him rather than our dog that had pissed on our tea. His antics had always been TV worthy. 

I tried to blame the grating phone call for finally breaking my already worn thin attention span, but, futile attempts hardly ever produced the desired effects, and I couldn't help but admit that the strange boy across from me was the cause of my minds misdirection. 

There was something sad about him, something that divided him from the rest of the world. There he sat, secluded from every other patron/worker in the café, huddled in the booth farthest from potentially prying eyes, but he didn't seem to be hiding, not in the way I knew I tended to, I knew I happened to be just a bit too much sometimes, so I had learned to let my personal brand of crazy out a little at a time. But, this boy, he seemed to unapologetically exist, he sat where he wanted because he could, fuck what other people thought of him. He seemed to belong there, anchored in the moment, but, at the same time, there seemed to be something fleeting about him, as though if I looked away for too long, he'd disappear, leaving nothing but a fine mist of silver behind to give any hint as to the reality of his existence. 

I had always enjoyed people. From their energetic passions to their penchant for hilarity, there is something enjoyable to be found within just about everybody, probably even Hitler...ok maybe not Hitler. Mankind is wonderful though, and when broken down, most people are pretty simple beings, easy to understand equations put side by side that make someone unique. I firmly rely on such thinking, returning to it in times of hatred of confusion, as our currently crazy, post-modern world tended to incite within society. It was just one of those irrefutable declarations of life for me, that humans could never be too complicated, not when there was someone in their lives willing to see through their artfully arranged veneer. This boy however, worried me. He threatened that very founding belief I had spent years cultivating and sharing with others, and I was both fearful and hypnotized by him. I was thoroughly convinced, within the span of half an hour, that, should someone ever be allowed close enough to him, could someone dissemble him piece by piece, see him inside and out, that he would still be a mystery at the end of it all, that only he would know the proper way to put his puzzle pieces back together again.

He was permanent and intangible and a child's game of cats cradle being played out in a human being all at once. A veritable dream catcher, this knotted work of beauty wasn't possible for my brain to fully comprehend, and I wondered what had gone into the making of him. Perhaps an ex lover had irreversibly scorned him, or maybe his parents had fucked him up just one insanity too many, or maybe life just molded him from rainbow clay and decided his uniqueness needed no explanations nor apologies. 

His beauty may have caught my attention, but his colorful complexity is what kept it. 

I had been masterfully and subtly sneaking glances at him whenever I didn't feel his own eyes staring at me, a sensation that was practically more thrilling than any orgasm id ever had, and the most unusually potent foreplay id ever partaken in. I scrubbed my hands over my face, forcing my tired muscles and skin to try and rejuvenate themselves slightly, having worked almost all day and not slept almost all of the previous night. I knew that I had to look quite the wreck, and that was a blow to my growing hopes of requited attraction, but, I allowed myself a lingering look at him, parting my calloused fingers just slightly enough to offer me a peak hole made of hands, allowing me an unobstructed view of him. I had multiple ways of knowing how to hide myself, some came in more handy than others. 

I didn't let my gaze linger for too long, my mothers decrees once again creeping into my mind, and it was a good job I didn't either, because, almost as soon as my hands had returned to their pretending work, I felt his gaze fall upon me once more, this one feeling more intense than the other ones had. I had been worried that I was going slightly mental, growing such a strong attraction to a stranger that my overactive imagination had invited all the times I had felt him gazing at me, self-fulfilling prophecies and all that shit. But now, now I knew, he was most assuredly looking at me just as much as I desperately wanted to look at him. This silent game of gazing volley ball was starting wear on my considerably low patience. 

Still, the confirmation of all that I had been craving for in the present place had me smiling like a loon even though I knew he was still looking. He'd probably think I was crazy now, a silly boy who was having a laugh with a still present imaginary friend, but I couldn't make myself stop. I was filled to the brim with more emotions than I could quite handle, buzzing anticipation, euphoric victory, questioning curiosity, and a warm happiness that flowed my the tips of my fingers to my head to the soles of my feet. Who was I to be allowed to feel so so much about such a stranger? How was he even possible? Who was I to desire him so fervently?

Nobody, a gruff voice said. The only person, a singing voice argued. 

I wanted him. I wanted to know what his favorite book was, what his first curse word was, where he lost his virginity, what kind of chair did he take naps in, if his hair would feel like silk or taste like chocolate, how his tattoos would feel beneath my tongue and if he'd let me make marks of my own, what his last dream was and how fast he could type on a keyboard. Here he sat, forming more questions than there could possibly be answers in my mind, staring and reading and existing in an impossible state, looking for all the world as though his beauty was nothing remarkable, and god did I want him.

And fuck if I wasn't worthy enough for his complexity, screw the gods that made him if they thought I wasn't enough to approach him, because approach him I did. Before my dazed mind could quite catch up with my feet's actions, I was walking towards the impossible boy and his ugly orange booth.

It was like playing in the ocean at the beach, being unconsciously pulled away and to something without even knowing you've moved. This boys waves of mystery were dragging me towards him, and I did nothing to stop being carried away. But, it was also like looking back to the shore, stopping your current activities long enough to realize that you had strayed from familiar territory, making yourself swim back until warm sand greeted your feet, trudging back to your towel and umbrella, a necessary reorientation that would keep you safe, a journey that was completed with a sense of belonging and home when you finally reached your destination. 

I was near panicking with excitement, which I blamed for my totally unprepared and fumbling greeting, "What's that?"

I wanted to grimace and smack my self silly across my face, but I pushed on, hopeful for redemption, but, it seemed unnecessary. Perhaps his book had been more engrossing than it seemed, maybe he just wasn't aware of my presence, or maybe he thought I was addressing someone else, even though we were the only two around. 

"Pardon?", came a confused question. 

I quickly laughed an apology at him for interrupting his reading, something I've been known to get cranky for myself, though, I was more into fantasy/action/adventure literature, that or guitar manuals, not the romance sop that his overly dramatic covered conveyed to me his book was. Even more quickly, I formed a lie from the tip of my tongue, letting some drivel about a broken pen take place for my actual reasoning; somehow, telling a complete stranger that I wanted to unravel their internal stories and fuck them into next week seemed a bit much, as I was wont to be, so, naturally, I hid. It was really only a white lie, I knew my pens life span was rapidly decreasing, but it definitely had a couple dozen more forms and signatures in it before quitting time.

He handed me a beat up pencil, apologizing for its state of un-penness, scuffling about to undoubtedly find me one, but, that, I couldn't have. He had already deigned to speak with me, give me a token of his being, who was I to ask for a friggin upgrade? I assured him that his pencil was fine, and made as smooth as exit as possible, which alerted my awkwardness that it had a prime opportunity to make its existence know, leading me to pretend salute him for his fine actions as I backed away. 

I turned sharply on my heel, needing to hide my face before he saw my embarrassed blush flame my cheeks red. A downfall to having such fair skin. 

I made myself write something, anything down, so as to make it seem that I really did need his writing instrument. I'm nothing if not dedicated. The only things I could muster however, were long loved doodles, my scrabby signature rehearsed, and the same four words followed by an increasingly large and aggravated looking question mark, 'What is his name?'. My mind strayed, thinking about the ridiculously phallic nature of us sharing his obviously well loved pencil, and how Freud was probably turning in his grave, when I noticed it. 

Hi hair.

Sometime between my pathetic pining and even worse lying, pencil stealing charade, he had released his curls from their lofty prison, which now hung freely, curling about his ears and framing his impossibly beautiful yet equally handsome face. He was Zeus and Aphrodite all in one. I could feel my blood rush quickly south and my mouth flood with saliva, and I knew I was fucked. Even over his croaky timber and kind generosity, the most amazing thing he had done so far was let his tresses breathe. Earlier, a few baby curls had escaped his tight artwork, miniscule flyaways and fireworks exploding around his head, giving a peek as to what was tucked away, like a beautiful negligee of secretive lace, a promise as to what could come later. But now, his curls were on full display, and I couldn't help but imagine how they'd feel wrapped around my finger, how silky they'd be under my hands, and if they could adequately muffle my moans. 

The pencil in my hands seemed to burn with an equal desire, and I damn near dropped the thing out of surprise and realization. I had been gripping it so tightly that my knuckles were pale white and there was a long, thin, geometric shape pressed into the skin of my palm when I released my tight grip. 

It needed to go, now, lest I steal it for my own as some sick kind of trophy, or have wet dreams about that fucking thing late at night. Anyways, I had promised to return it in tip top shape.

I shoved, rather ungracefully, all my long forgotten papers into my leather bag, taking off and tucking my glasses onto the neckline of my shirt, letting it hang there like some weird, gaudy necklace. I placed my ugly, chipped tea cup on top of a nearby trashcan, hoping some worker would find it later, return it to its rightful place. 

I was less nervous this go round, having a small amount of confidence gained after having made less of a fool of myself as I knew I very well could have, and was determined this time to make eye contact with him, see those secrets I was so afraid of earlier. 

I thanked him, joked with him, earned a joke in return, hated my own rough brogue while salivating at the deep, dark, vibrations of his. And his eyes, oh his eyes. Those emeralds that I had every right to be wary of, they pierced my very soul and confirmed everything I had been convinced of earlier. This was no man, he was a mystery, one I knew I couldn't just let myself pass by. He was a ball of illuminated thread, and I wanted to be the hands that picked and plucked at him until he unraveled. Simultaneously, I wanted to be the needle which his fibers pierced, to be as sturdy and needed as such. There could be no sewing without the marriage of those two wholes. 

"See ya round..." I trailed off, setting up the game of name exchange.

"Oh, Harry," He pointed his thumb to his chest, "My name's Harry."

Harry....Harry. I could earn his last name another time, another time I was determined to have happen.

"Well, just Harry, I'm just Niall. Have a good day." My coltish grace made a reappearance as I retreated, and, like the bumbling fool I am, curtsied my way out of the conversation, a logical moves my nerves had decided was appropriate. I was extremely tempted to turn around, look back to confirm that he had been real all along, or to see if he had disappeared like the Cheshire cat, to see if there really was a cloud of silver when he had been.

I was making my way towards the cafe's front counter, tugging my continuously slipping bag handle back on my shoulders, when I knew what needed to be down. I fished out a small piece of unblemished paper from the chaos contained within the worn down leather, and politely asked the busty brunette barista if she had a pen I could steal. I didn't think much about the words I left in ink, hoping that instinct was the best way to go, and asked the girl if she could do a favor for me. 

Walking out of the cafe's grungy doors, which told me that the places name was Cal's Coffeepot, I had a brilliant desire to grab a packet of pencils on the way home, not having totally forgotten my flat mates demand for edible reinforcements. Perhaps a packet of pens as well, but, then again, maybe not. Maybe, if I slowly let myself run out of either, maybe of all possible writing utensils, then Id be able to ask Harry for his, ingratiate myself into his life with something so small and ordinary. 

I traced the ridiculously sentimental and slightly mental idea over and over within my mind, learning its boundaries like one does a beloved bed, knowing where each ends stops and starts, understanding the fathomlessly spaces it can hold in between, and I was struck with a certain clarity.

I had never much appreciated the near necessity of lead and ink, but, now, it was like a gift from the gods, like Harry himself.

**Author's Note:**

> The people asked and here it is. Thanks to all the lovely comments yall left, I'm contemplating writing something else within this series, so, keep tuned! Writing as Niall was a bit trickier for me so, apologies if this isn't as up to par with its predecessor. Posts wont normally be as speedy as this one was, but I had a day off, soooo. Much love!


End file.
